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JAMESTOWN – Christmas celebrations will take place in one form or another in Jamestown this Holiday Season, according to municipal leaders who are now working to coordinate festivities.
Last Friday Mayor Eddie Sundquist explained the parade would return. On Tuesday, his office announced a partnership with Collaborative Children’s Solution to organize the annual holiday parade.
Leading the charge will be Patrick Smeraldo, a local PE teacher and service coordinator with the group. Smeraldo is best known for his charitable work with the Toys for Tots campaign and hopes to bring the community together this holiday season.
Specifically, he is looking to bridge the gap between local businesses and the community. So far he says there has been a great response.
“Since yesterday even when it was announced, when it went through the media, and even this morning we’ve had a lot of inquiries with companies,” says Smeraldo. “I think that I wanna stress that I am with Collaborative Children’s Solution. No one person can do this, this is gonna be a collaboration with all of these agencies, businesses, organizations, and The City of Jamestown, and then all the departments.”
The process to put together a parade in just a month’s time might be tough, with Smoreldo looking to others to lend a hand. He is slated to meet with city leaders next week to lay down a foundation for the event.
In 2019 a traditional parade was held by the Jamestown Renaissance Corporation and last year a “reverse parade” was put on by the city and Chamber of Commerce due to COVID-19 concerns. Unfortunately, that event did not go very well, with traffic jams the main issue downtown.
The hope is to have a full parade return this year, however nothing has been fully set in stone yet. We still don’t know what day, time or even location it would take place. Generally speaking, the parade happens the first Friday of December on Third Street in Downtown Jamestown.
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